A lot goes down in the first episode of Netflix’s Wanderlust, though not quite in the way you’d expect from a television drama about sex and relationships. In fact, much of it is spent watching its central couple Alan (Steven Mackintosh) and Joy (Toni Collette) attempt to reach some level of sexual intimacy. But try as they might, they find it either too painful, too awkward or simply just not arousing. They resort to old-school wooing, including new lingerie on her part, which seems to leave him more exhausted than energized. At one point, he tells her he’s “tired” though he “appreciates the attempt.”

The thing is, they’ve been married for 20 long years, share three children, and are still very much in love. So how, exactly, can they try and resuscitate their self-described “flat-lining sex life?”

Alan, Claire.Netflix/Stuart Wood

After yet another failed effort, Alan finds himself sleeping with Claire, a co-worker, while Joy finds herself kissing Marvin, a fellow hydrotherapy student. This time, the barrier between them is their individual betrayals, which come spilling out soon after their heads hit the bed. Unlike much of what film and television peddle when it comes to infidelity, these two don’t resort to divorce. Instead, they have a conversation without casting blame or punishment, admitting they don’t feel at all inclined to have sex with each other. In fact, they’re quite bored of each other’s bodies.

“I think we’ve stopped having fun,” Joy says, “and I think perhaps we stopped communicating about what we enjoy or what we want, or might want, or might have wanted to try.” (She, by the way, is a therapist.) “For once in our lives, we can do whatever the f–k we want and see what happens. You know, without agonizing over it or feeling guilty or sheepish or punishing ourselves for happening to want different things.”

So, she tells Alan, she would like to see Marvin again. Would he like to see Claire again? Yes, he says, to which she responds, as the episode comes to a resounding close, “Then why don’t we?”

It’s a simple question: why don’t we? Throughout its six-episode first season, Wanderlust suggests we should do what we want — as Alan and Joy do — but it isn’t without exploring the risk at hand. In doing so, the series presents a novel exploration of what it means to connect.

For Alan and Joy, that’s rerouting to each other via an open relationship, which, from the moment the pair confess their infidelities, is never once treated like a sinful exploit. Polyamory is instead considered a cure; their intention is not to let it create distance, but to bring them closer together.

Joy, her therapist (played by Sophie Okonedo).Netflix/BBC

While Alan continues to explore this with Claire, Joy explores it with several different men, including a former boyfriend. When the pair come home after their first dates, they find themselves magnetized to each other, having sex on the bathroom floor and against the bedroom wall. It’s so unlike the stale chemistry we saw in the pilot that it’s clear this unconventional fix just might work. They admit to each other that they feel as if they’re already “falling in love all over again.” It’s a common pattern referred to in real-life polyamory circles as “reclamation sex,” a sort of reaffirmation of your primary relationship after stepping out with someone else.

Alan and Joy are able to see themselves in a new way in the eyes of other partners. Not only are they then able to return to each other with a fresh curiosity, but they are able to feel more complete as individuals. That search for intimacy isn’t just hinged on sex in Wanderlust, but on a deep desire for safety, security and understanding in whatever form. It’s a need that forms an instant spark between the couple’s adult daughter Naomi and their older neighbour, seen only in brief moments as they catch each other’s eyes from across the street, or when the neighbour bakes a new confection and Naomi taste-tests. Both are lonely in a specific way that only they can see. That mutual discovery builds an unlikely connective thread between them.

Tom, Michelle.Netflix/Amanda Searle

We see it between Joy and her therapist to whom, by season’s end, she reveals so much more of herself than perhaps she has to Alan. We see it in the way Joy’s former patient woos her daughter after they part ways, perhaps in a way to maintain the connection he had with her; and we see it in a young couple, Alan and Joy’s son Tom and his friend Michelle, who are only just beginning to discover each other.

The common thread being, of course, that we’re all itching to connect, whether it’s through love, sex, therapy, family or friendship. The need to be seen and understood breeds curiosity, which breeds intimacy. But getting there requires a certain level of exposure and vulnerability.

Right now, there are more outlets for connection than ever thanks to social media. But with a seemingly endless menu of options and, therefore, a disinclination to settle, the expectation for vulnerability is low. Despite infinite promises of connection, the result is instead a gnawing sense of loneliness. A phone, after all, can’t provide the level of tangible connection a person does, not when it’s the last thing you touch before you go to bed instead of the person laying next to you.

Which, actually, is the definition of wanderlust, a “strong longing for or impulse toward wandering.” The risk being, of course, that one day you may wander and never come back, having found more of a connection than you expected, an emotional gamble that Alan and Joy straddle all season. It’s an honest examination and a unique discussion that asks viewers to strip away what we think others might expect from us and instead consider what it is we truly want. It’s not about glorifying infidelity or even making it okay, but about understanding that it’s alright to want something different and find connections in places other than where we’ve always been told we should find them.